Chapter 4: Cult of Shadows
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Traveling for hundreds of thousands of miles, Elwin reaches the gargantuan serpent skeleton's stomach, dubbed the "hollow passage." The sheer size of this place makes up an entire continent on its own, reaching well over 5,000 miles in length.
Luckily, Elwin caught the trail of the cultist's hollow energy signature, and it's one his body can never forget. being that of a powerful calamity stench covering.
His eyes focused down onto the vast continent's different areas, but he noticed one particular location. that had a high concentration of calamity hollow energy.
Without wasting a second, a small compact crystal forms in Elwin's hand, dropping it downward towards the signature he sensed, and instantly, he appears atop one of the nearby buildings' rooftops, scouting ahead to see anything.
Into the distance, he notices a group of hooded figures dressed in black robes, carrying red books with an insignia shaped like a half-moon, with shadowy tendrils and eyes rising from the bottom.
Alongside this, Elwin takes note that one of them in particular has an extremely high output, especially for just being an irregular in a group full of calamity worshipers.
'How odd, and not only that this is the same scent I've been tracking, giving off the feeling of the shadow calamity being here… don't tell me that the cultists here are not only supporters but have been marked under the shadow.' Elwin doesn't think too long and immediately bursts from the building he landed on, flying straight towards the highest output he senses.
Instantaneously, Elwin appears, his blade moving faster than any of the other cultists could react to expect, except for the one he sensed just moments ago.
Clang!!
The sound of heavy steel rings, the much larger cultist clashes with the tip of Elwin's mighty blade of harmony. Swinging with immense force, Elwin can hear a low growling voice under the hood, and seven red & black tendrils appear from the back of the hulking giant.
" I am the marked hand of the shadow calamity dubbed Barak the great giant." Without wasting a second, Barak immediately summons four massive shadow hands large enough to engulf an entire city under their palms and slams all four of them together into the ground, trying to crush Elwin under his sheer strength.
Elwin jumps back into the air, utilizing burst flow to avoid the hands following that he dashes around Barak and releases one of his sword techniques, "sword god purity: multi-step thrust." A storm of powerful thrust motions rain down onto the shadow hands Barak summoned, blasting them with deadly bursts of entropy and starlight.
Barak doesn't let up, though. His heavy mace-like weapon swings upwards towards Elwin's divine-instrument weapon, parrying the thrusts back and sending the young weaver hybrid reeling back from the raw strength carried behind Barak's furious attack speed.
Another swing comes crashing down onto Elwin's head. This time, he raised his sword overhead and blocked it with the flat side of his blade, precisely.
Following through, Barak re-summons those massive city-sized shadow hands, aiming to grab and squeeze the life out of Elwin, popping him like a small fruit; however, before he can reach him. Elwin disappears almost instantly.
He appears above Barak and aims his blade down towards the giant. Still, before he could shoot out the beam, all the smaller cultists who were gathered around Barak simultaneously slit their throats with black wooden carved daggers, spraying black liquid all across his face, chest, and body until they dropped to the floor in deafening silence.
Elwin teleports away to give himself distance before Barak could attempt anything, and throws out from his hand five small compact star clusters.
Barak's body shivers for a brief second, then his eyes go completely black, and a massive spike of his hollow energy fluctuates outward as he turns himself, looking up directly toward Elwin's position.
Elwin looks down to see the giant he clashed with moments ago, dressed in black, now doubled in size, with multiple shadow hands forming from his back.
Elwin also saw that Barak's eyes were now oozing constantly with the same black liquid sprayed from the group of dead cultists' corpses, with their throats slashed.
'The calamity marks of empowerment seem to be taking a toll on Barack's body, and that constant bleeding is a telling side effect. The only thing I can do is release him from this pain and bring a sense of balance back to this dead zone.'
Without wasting another second. Elwin blitzed past Barak's line of sight, teleporting under one of the many stars he had created only moments ago, summoning one of his attacks, "Stardust: Vega." A stream of multiple light beams formed from his stars converges into a singular, powerful, concentrated beam of destruction. Blasting towards Barak and tearing off one of his arms right from the shoulder.
Barak yells out in great pain and swings his shadow mace wildly around the area, destroying everything and creating massive craters from his raw impact.
Elwin keeps his momentum, dodging and jumping in between the thousands of Barak's powerful mace swings. In the midst of his movements, Elwin quickly parried back a swing coming from his right side, aimed his blade towards the giant's abdomen, and struck with another sword technique called "sword god purity: mirror reflect." Barak feels the space between himself and Elwin distort rapidly as Elwin's blade disappears, striking into the giant reinforced hide.
The blade plunges through, tearing into the giant's abdomen. Elwin steps back with his right foot and keeps his left at the lead, then presses the blade forward into Barak's body, deeper. Irregulars across the continent can hear the sound of roaring, gathered in confusion about what's transpiring in the forest.
Elwin teleports above Barak, his blade raised high into the sky, and swings down with swift movements, splitting the giant in half down the middle. Barak's eyes gloss over, and the shadow mace drops to the ground with a heavy thud, with streams of black liquid oozing out from Barak's split body.
Elwin drops down towards the ground. Resheathing his blade, as it disappears into his soul sanctuary, he walks over to see the mark left behind by the calamity and watches as it slowly melts off the surface of Barak's skin, with a noticeable female laugh echoing in the distance.
"Looks to be that I've gotten her full attention now, I can follow that hollow energy trace left behind from the mark and confront this living shadow once and for all." Elwin aims his finger as it slowly burns off, saying, "lambda type: teleport." Dissapering from sight.